John L. Sullivan was the last Bare-Knuckle Boxing Heavyweight Champion of the World and the first Gloved Heavyweight Champion of the World. Of course, back when the “world” mostly meant the US and the UK to citizens of these countries.

But these fighters were tough, with fights sometimes lasting as many as 45 rounds (3 hours) and often with no legitimate end other than knockout allowed.

Interestingly, some think bare knuckle is safer than using gloves. There is evidence to show that its the jarring of the brain, not the damage caused to the outside of the head, that causes long-term issues like CTE. Bare-knuckle boxers, it seems, were more strategic in their shots, since any strike might end up breaking your hand (and losing you the fight).

“A man fights with his head almost as much as he does with his fists. He must know where to send his blows so they may do the most good. He must economize his strength and not score a hit just for the sake of scoring it. Learn to strike straight and clean. Swinging blows nearly always leave an opening for your opponent. … Always watch your opponent. As soon as you see him about to lead, shoot your left into his face. The force of his coming towards you will increase your blows considerably….I endeavor to hit my man above the heart or under the chin or behind the ear…A man wears out pretty soon if one can keep hammering away in the region around the heart. A blow under the chin or behind the ear will knock a man out quicker than a hundred blows on the cheek or any other portion of the face. I have always considered it necessary that a young man, in order to become an accomplished boxer, should have brains as well as muscle. I never knew a thick-headed fellow yet to become skillful in the manly art….What I know about boxing, I picked up from hard experience and intelligent observation. I belong to no school of boxers and have copied no special master’s style. I always fight according to my own judgment. If a man can’t train himself, no one in the world can do it for him.”
John L. Sullivan

Note the Man Sau / Wu Sau like positioning of the arms and the Sunfist (thumb up) position of the hands.

“A fighter with heart will almost always win out against a fighter with skill but no will.”
Chuck Liddell

“I’ve never found that getting physical is ever the best response in a bar. You just have to make sure you keep your distance, and if it gets to a point where it gets aggressive then the best thing to do is go get a bouncer and get the situation resolved intelligently.”
Chuck Liddell

Here is an interesting lesson in striking from former UFC Light Heavyweight Champ Chuck Liddell.

Liddell was one of the few strikers successful in that era of the UFC, when everyone was discovering the significant advantages of a good wrestling or BJJ game in the ring with the UFC rules. Even now, if you have no ground game in the UFC, you are done. Unless the opponent has a glass chin, they will eventually be able to drag you down.

Although, I must note in passing, in the recent UFC Championship bout between Joanna Jędrzejczyk (Muay Thai) and Cláudia Gadelha (BJJ Black Belt), Jędrzejczyk showed what can happen if the striker has a solid takedown defense and has the skills the survive on the ground, even if they don’t dominate there.

But in the real world, where we prefer to keep it standing up so we are not rolling around under tables and getting kicked in the head but our opponent’s friends, you want to learn how to strike hard. Liddell’s advice doesn’t apply directly to the Wing Chun striking method, but its good to have a versatile bag of tricks (IMO) and to know what your opponent may bring.

What happen’s when you duck back (as he describes in the video) is also what happens when you back up in a straight line. Each step is a frozen moment where you are stuck and a target. This is why we Toi Ma (angle step).

“Yes, it’s true I once knocked out a horse. It was at a fiesta in my mother’s home town of Guarare. Someone bet me a bottle of whiskey that I couldn’t do it.”
Roberto Durán

Roberto Durán held world titles in four different weight classes. He was the Lightweight Champion for 7 years (1972–79), the Welterweight Champ in 1980, Light middleweight from 1983–84, and Middleweight Champ in 1989.

He only retired at 50 years old after he was badly injured in a car crash. He was one tough guy.

His fighting style shared many aspects with the ideal, effective Wing Chun approach. As we see in this video, he used his elbows and forearms to control, cover, and trap, often trapping with one arm and striking with the other, especially with uppercuts and tight hooks to the body. He applied non-stop pressure, got in very close, and used pressure sensitivity to detect openings which he filled with strikes to the head and body. This was especially true in his early fights.

Later on, he used various types of jab to soften his opponents from outside and to draw them to him. He was a master counter-puncher and liked to enter at a very slight angle, a super-economical move similar in principle to our triangle entry. He shifted a bit to left or right and entered a few degrees off the centerline. It seemed like he was going straight in but it was actually a subtle flanking maneuver.

We can all learn something from watching him as you will find all the sau’s (hands) will be used in a live fight in ways that are more loose and at variations of angle based on position as needed. It all looks more sloppy and less like a Donne Yen film in real life.

It has been said that watching real masters fighting in combat, the differences between styles disappear and the similarities emerge.

As my Sifu has often quoted, we all have two arms, two legs and a head (well, most of us do).

My Sifu turned me on to this video from Daniel Sambrano, an instructor from the Muay Thai Academy International of Santa Clara who also had a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. Unfortunately, he passed a few weeks ago, so condolences to his family and friends.

Among other aspects of his legacy, he has left us a lot of interesting information on Bare Knuckle boxing and street fighting on his Muay Thai: Beyond the Ring site and his BareFisted Youtube channel.

As we so often find, the techniques and strategies his describes are nearly identical with Wing Chun practices and support everything we’ve been saying about the differences between boxing in the ring and fighting on the street.

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Hi. I'm Steve, a professional researcher. I started learning Wing Chun Kung Fu in 2000. Since then, I've trained with some of the best Wing Chun teachers in the world (including Greg LeBlanc and Gary Lam) and done hundreds of hours of research into fight science. This website contains the best of what I've learned. Contact: [email protected]